1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to machinery for cutting pipe, tubing or the like, particularly pipe or tubing of relatively small diameter.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, machinery for cutting pipe and tubing in extant in a variety of forms. The prior art structures exist in forms accommodating a variety of pipe diameters ranging from a small fraction of an inch to sizes found in water mains and drainage conduits.
The invention herein to be described is most relevant to machinery for cutting pipe most often encountered in small building construction and plumbing repair or in small manufacturing operations where only minimal machinery investment is justified.
The prior art includes powered metal saws of the reciprocating or circular blade types and machines using rotating abrasive cutter wheels. The prior art devices most relevant to the machine of the invention are those employing parallel driven rollers forming a cradle for the work and a free-wheeling cutter wheel advanced against the work from above. Such a prior art device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,072,073. That invention and the present invention have the same inventorship. Other machinery of general background interest is disclosed in the list of cited references printed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,072,073, although those citations are much less relevant to the present invention than U.S. Pat. No. 4,072,073 itself.
There exists a need in the art for a pipe cutting machine which is relatively inexpensive to manufacture, convenient to use and capable of quick readjustment for pipe size. The manner in which the invention advances the state of this art will be apparent as this specification proceeds.